It was a tough weekend for Oaklands Wolves men as they suffered a pair of double digit defeats.
Former Wolves stars, Talles Zacharias and Montel Dennis, came back to haunt their old club with 21 and 20 points respectively as visitors NASSA won 83-64 on Saturday evening while Oaklands II suffered a heavy 101-50 loss at Anglian Ruskin University.
A high scoring first period saw Wolves trail 30-15 at the first break but La'Quarne Sayers launched a much improved second period, and his triple followed by a Lanre Pratt lay-up cut the deficit to 34-31 midway through the quarter.
Pratt and Sayers continued to dominate the hosts' offence, and the latter converted a pair of free-throws as Wolves trailed 46-40 at half-time but the hosts went scoreless in the first five minutes of the second half and NASSA took a stranglehold on the game they would never lose.
Oliver Rudzinski, eventually ended the drought and despite a Sayers triple followed by a pair of Jack Davies free-throws, the hosts trailed 63-50 at the final break.
Daren Agbonogah's lay-up opened the fourth period scoring before Davies drained a triple but that was the only time Wolves were within single figures as the east London side closed out the win.
Sayers led Fiath Karahan's team with 23 points and five rebounds, while Davies added 10 points.
Pratt continued his excellent first season in senior basketball with ten rebounds to go with his eight points.
Meanwhile in Division Three, the young Wolves' team never recovered from a 25-9 first period as they suffered a heavy loss in Cambridge.
Daniel Kostadinov led the visitors with 12 points, with Drew Armistead and Mpondu adding seven apiece.
The U12 boys continued their title push with a 77-40 victory at Bedford Thunder on Sunday morning.
Against a side they had recorded a thrilling one-point victory against before Christmas, Michael Ball's team did most of the damage in the first half as they built on a 20-9 lead at the opening break to go into the half-time break with a 45-13 lead.
An 18-8 third period extended the advantage before the visitors relaxed in the final stanza and were outscored 19-14.
Manuel Gracia-Peris again top scored with a 24-point haul, with Alex Cofone adding 18.
Wolves U13 boys also won as they overcame a slow start to defeat the club's U14 development side 56-52.
Alex Ryan (13) and Td Yu (12) led the way for the younger side as a 16-9 third period proved crucial.
Danny Soutas and Rocky Starr each finished with nine points for the U13s.
Foul trouble proved crucial for the U15 boys, but it was a much better performance than the previous week as they went down 70-56 against Stevenage Royals at Oaklands.
The hosts trailed 14-8 at the end of Q1 but fought back to cut the deficit to 30-28 at half-time.
They led briefly in the third period before going into the final break trailing 49-42 and eventually ran out of steam as Royals closed out the win with a 21-14 fourth period.
Ethan Chung led Wolves for the second straight week after moving up from the development squad, dropping two triples on the way to 14 points and three rebounds despite missing much of the fourth period after collecting his fourth foul.
Nestor Sharma added 11 points and four boards, while Jacob Edrupt chipped in with a pair of treys in his eight points, six assists and three steals
It was another tough weekend for the girls teams as the U14s couldn't build on a great first period as they lost 67-53 to Ipswich and the U16s found Luton too strong for the second week running as they went down 85-40.
The U14s started where they'd left off in the previous week's big win at Bristol by rushing into a 22-6 first period lead only to see Ipswich outscore them 23-5 to lead by two going into the locker room.
The visitors added a point to that lead with a 17-16 third period before outscoring Wolves 21-10 in the final quarter to wrap up the win.
Jane Yu led Wolves with 29 points.
The U16s never recovered from a 24-8 first period deficit, but did rally with 16 points in final period.
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